TV REVIEWS: FTN Reviews Arrow Season 8 Episode 3: Leap Of Faith

Well…who saw that ending coming? Not me! The writers of Arrow were teasing a BIG ending, and I thought the death of Zoe was big enough, and then the characters literally saw the light and found themselves looking at their future! That’s right William and Mia, Daddy’s Home!!!!!!

“Leap of Faith” was definitely a step in the right direction for Arrow after a slightly slower episode last week. Oliver’s trip to Nanda Parbat brought back a lot of familiar characters. One we knew about in Thea, and one that was a surprise with Talia (Katrina Law who plays Nyssa is doing Hawaii Five-0 and that’s likely why she won’t be in this season).

Diving into the history of the League of Assassins, and how it all tied into The Monitor situation was very interesting, including finding out about the first Ra’s Al Ghul and how he met The Monitor once upon a time. While we may not technically have learned anything new, the real crux of this episode was seeing Oliver and Thea back together for possibly the last time. Seeing Ollie being overprotective of her, only for him to not only save his butt, but then beat Talia in combat was really fun. And shows just how far Thea has come since her rather whiny nature in Season 1.

Plus, did anyone catch that Thea and Nyssa coming together to make a “League of Heroes” might just be the birth of the “Legion of Superheroes”? I’m just saying.

The future storyline definitely picked up for the better here, and it did so by finally making use of Mia in a way that wasn’t her just being angry and kicking people’s butts. Her scene about her feelings for William honestly felt genuine because we know it’s the truth. She went from having no family, to having it all back together, to now only having William, so she wants to take out JJ so that William and everyone else will be safe.

Still, it was good to see her recklessness over trying to JJ out of the picture had consequences. The death of Zoe was indeed shocking, and seeing Mia break down over it (because she knew it was her fault) was good. As was JJ almost breaking bad before being sent to the past.

Of course, this begs the question, why did The Monitor do that? Clearly it was his doing, what is he going for here? We’ll find out next week I guess.

“Leap of Faith” had a lot of fun things going on here, and bringing even more insanity to bear as we get closer to the halfway point of the season. With the past and future together…who knows what will happen next?

Todd Black is reader of comics, a watch of TV (a LOT of TV), and a writer of many different mediums. He's written teleplays, fan-fictions, and currently writes a comic book called Guardians (guardians-comic.com). He dreams of working at Nintendo, writing a SHAZAM! TV series, and working on Guardians for a very long time!